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Jeffrey C. Hallo

Jeffrey Hallo, Ph.D. is a Professor and the Graduate Coordinator in Clemson University’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management. His research and teaching are focused on understanding, planning for, and managing visitor use in parks, forests, and other protected areas. He has authored or co-authored over 80 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles, books, or book chapters on these topics. He was an interviewed expert for news articles appearing in The Washington Post, National Geographic, Delta Sky Magazine, and WalletHub. In 2016, Jeff released his first children’s book titled Rosy Ralph Visits His National Parks. In 2017 and 2018 he received university awards for his graduate student mentoring and for his scholarship in scientific journals. In 2022, Jeff received an award for his Distinguished Service as the Interim Chair of the PRTM department.

Jeff has an expertise in parks and in large project administration, having both a M.S. in Technical/Project Management and having led or co-led numerous applied projects. His work has specifically focused on empirical studies of visitor use management; park visitors/tourists; potential park visitors/tourists and stakeholders; natural, historical, and culturally-based recreation; carrying capacity; sustainable transportation planning; scenic driving/ORV recreation; and modeling of recreational use patterns. Methods, tools, and concepts used in this research include indicator/threshold-based planning and management frameworks (including the federal Interagency Visitor Use Management Council’s Visitor Use Management Framework), normative approaches, GPS, GIS, automated field cameras, visual simulations, surveys, and qualitative research techniques (e.g., focus groups, interviewing, Photovoice, and rigorous qualitative analysis).

Jeff’s projects have occurred at places such as Cumberland Island National Seashore, Pinnacles National Park, Cape Cod National Seashore, Acadia National Park, Congaree National Park, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Petra Archeological Park (Jordan), Kenai Fjords National Park, Denali National Park, Sumter National Forest, Tennessee State Parks, Maasai Mara National Reserve (Kenya), ACE Basin National Estuarine Research Reserve, and El Yunque National Forest (Puerto Rico). Jeff completed a project at Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area to conduct visitor and carrying capacity studies to inform one of the first formal Visitor Use Management Plans in the U.S. National Park Service. Also, he led a multi-year, multi-university study at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to help support the implementation of a management strategy to protect an endangered public recreation experience related to a marine mammal of global concern – the polar bear. Many of these projects support formal planning efforts and documents. The overall intent of Jeff’s work is to ensure that we sustainably and appropriately use parks, tourism sites, and protected areas for public enjoyment.

Jeff lives in Central, SC with his wife Lisa and their three young children Cooper, Ashlyn, and Bridger. Jeff greatly enjoys experiencing parks and the natural world with his family.

Human-caused noise and light can threaten the ecological integrity of the natural environment and diminish our enjoyment of national parks and protected...